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About Listening Point

The cabin of Sigurd and Elizabeth Olson on Listening Point (click to enlarge)

Listening Point, located on the south arm of Burntside Lake, was Sigurd and Elizabeth Olson’s retreat in the woods. They initially purchased 26 acres, and eventually enlarged their property to about 36 acres. The property, less than ten miles from their home, included a small beach, a cove bordered with alder and willow, upland stands of second-growth birch and pine, and large boulders dropped into place during the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age ten thousand years ago.

Most important, however, was the westward-facing point itself: glaciated greenstone rock fringed with weathered pines and partly covered with a patch of bearberry and juniper. Sitting on the end of Listening Point, Sigurd could look out over the wide-open spaces of Burntside Lake, listen to the birds, watch the sunset, and regain some balance in a life that had become more and more hectic at a time when most people begin to think about retirement.

Sigurd Olson created Listening Point in 1956 as a private retreat. It became widely known and celebrated after Alfred Knopf published Olson’s book, “Listening Point” in 1958.

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Quotes from Sig

Only fools run rapids, say the Indians, but I know this: as long as there are young men with the light of adventure in their eyes and a touch of wildness in their souls, rapids will be run.... I know it is wrong, but I am for the spirit that makes young men do the things they do. I am for the glory that they know.
~ The Singing Wilderness, 80-81